As the years passed
by chillysensation
Summary: Fragments of Hanji's life describing her interaction with Rivaille since the first time they've seen each other, Includes some scenes from manga from her perspective, I am NOT NATIVE SPEAKER so there will be some grammatical mistakes, I guess - Levihan
1. Chapter 1

A cold winter day covered in an alabaster white snow reflecting radiating sun light. It wasn't some kind of special extraordinary day, just a lot of responsibilities, little of my beloved research, getting up early. The constant drinking of strong black coffee was the only solution for me to stay up long after midnight and to have enough time to get through the huge hill of papers, which were still falling on my head from above. Unfortunately, just that day my precious supplies of caffeine ran out so I had to, thanks God, leave my work for a little while. I intended to creep to the kitchen and usurp the one of the coffee cans for myself.

As I went out of the building to cross the courtyard, I sighted a lot of soldiers including my friends, who were standing in the tamped snow with unhidden interest watching something while they were shouting and talking out loud.

I shivered with cold, because I was too lazy for wearing my uniform jacket at least, so I crossed my hands on my chest as a little protection against chill around. With cracking sounds of my shoes, when they met the crunchy snow crystals on the ground, I walked to two tall blond-haired men hidden in green uniform cloaks. They had been just murmuring with their eyes looking somewhere in front of them, when I jumped to them to interrupt their whispering conversation.

"Who are you slandering?" I shouted at them with laughter and both of them jumped a bit as they got startled, when I forcibly stepped between them.

"Oh, Hanji. Not so loud!" the taller blond man with barely noticeable moustache under his nose admonished me.

"The new guy just arrived," the younger man by my left hand with an angelic soft face and quite feminine voice explained to me.

"Yeah, right. The new guy," I nodded understandingly and I finally noticed what the bunch of the soldiers was scrutinizing.

Our commander Erwin was standing firmly beside his horse while speaking to some really young, black-haired boy, whose height barely reached Erwin's shoulders. He was wearing dark brown cloak and his bored annoyed face was apparent even in the shadow of his wrongly placed hood.

"He's quite small," Nanaba states with his high voice as he observed the newbie.

"Yeah, like a child. He won't survive his first expedition," Mike uttered sceptically.

"Remember, that you said that about me as well," I said in response with slightly self-satisfied voice, "and now we are both the squad leaders."

"I wonder, where Erwin found him," Nanaba continued talking like he wasn't listening to me and Mike at all.

"He is said to be a thug," the one soldier stepped in the conversation, when he heard him and a friend of his next to him added immediately, "somebody said, that he was a member of underworld."

"Bullshit," Mike refused to admit to himself, while everyone kept watching Erwin talking to the young man.

The black haired man hardly ever opened his mouth to reply. I couldn't help myself but something about him interested me. Maybe it was his inaccessible nature, the strangely short figure or the ominously narrowed eyes.

"Anyway, I would like to know how he smells," Mike stated in dreams and he turned to his friends to find out if anybody heard him, "However, how I see, I am not as much interested as Hanji," and he caught the top of my head, which I had curiously inclined to the one side. He ruffled my hair a bit and drove me away of my little distant scrutinizing look, with which I observed the newbie.

Everybody started laugh out loud and I quickly removed his hand off my head, irritated with his thought. The young man got probably interrupted due to our laughter and in that moment my eyes for just a fraction of a second met the sight of future humanity's strongest soldier for the first time.

I was walking in the corridor of the fortress with hands full of papers. I didn't even see what's in front of me but fortunately I knew the path to my workroom or rather the room, where I had been usually falling asleep and getting up on the wooden table with some reports glued to my face, by heart. I just had enjoyed a little fun on the expedition and I was immediately back and the paperwork continued.

"And there she is," I heard Erwin's voice somewhere in front of me.

"What do you need, commander?" I asked with difficulties, because the part of my papers just fell into my face.

"I was thinking, that all of the captains should know first, that there is somebody who is going to join them soon," Erwin stated.

"Oh I see! So Petra was finally promoted. Good for her!" I chirped with joy in a false idea, still buried in papers, and due to it deprived of the look on my superior.

"Not really. Actually the new captain is standing with me here right now," said Erwin little annoyed and grasped my reports and pull them out of me.

"That a pi-," I started but I stopped as I caught sight of the newbie beside Erwin, "-tty…" I finished after a moment.

The young man looked at me neutrally with his metallically grey narrowed eyes, like he was searching for something. After a while he stretched out his pale but through the shirt noticeably worked out hand to me and I silently held it.

"Rivaille. Nice to meet you," he uttered simply with his piercing eyes and for a moment he grasped my hand unbelievably firmly.

"Hanji Zoe. Pleasure of mine," I said in response automatically with neutral rather silent voice.

Finally I heard his voice, I thought to myself. It was deep voice with a peculiar unordinary voice colour and an unspecific monotone intonation.

"I have to go, see you around, Hanji," Erwin's voice interrupted my thoughts and when I turned to face him, I just saw his back, as he was quickly walking somewhere.

I turned back and I wanted to bow for my papers lying in the column on the floor, but Rivaille was faster and he handed me them.

"Thanks," I uttered and overtook the reports from him, "hey and were you really in the underworld?" escaped from my mouth because of my curiousity.

"Exactly as I thought," he stated with the amount of the satisfaction in voice, "shitty glasses and the huge knowledge of gossips," he added ironically and sneered.

His offence surprised me, but I resolutely didn't want to make a scene.

"Oh yeah, I might have a glasses but at least I don't barely measure one and half of meter," I remarked with sweet smile and I turned my back to him.

I was well aware, that he was piercing me with his sceptically half-closed eyes all the way to the door of my workroom, where I disappeared.

Titans just smashed through the outer wall. Every member of Scouting Legion was drafted to the fights. I couldn't suppress a certain wave of excitement as well as the fear, which were devouring me. I ran to my squad and together we went to the second wall.

I saw them. The millions of titans were streaming through the rift in the wall. We fought as we could but in every case the hole in wall couldn't be filled by us therefore the enemies continued infiltrating Shinganshina.

We might have been fighting a day, maybe two. The supplies kept vanishing as well as the ranks of soldiers. I had a feeling, that my hands were covered in more titan blood than for my whole career in army. Even though the blood almost immediately evaporated, the feeling persisted as well as the hopelessness because of the lost battle in advance.

I was exhausted. I stood in the wide street on the nape of just killed titan, who fell on the corpse of another member of his kind who I slaughtered as well. One quite small titan ran to me. I drew my swords and I cut a huge piece of flesh of his nape. Another titan fell victim to my blades.

I was out of breath watching, how two just extremely tall titans headed for me. It would be interesting to scrutinize how the steam ran from the titan corpses but not after two days of fighting. I was almost out of gas in the tanks of my 3DMG, so I was quite reconciled with the fact, that I wouldn't be able to slay both titans. Unfortunately the gas wasn't even enough for me to escape.

Just in that moment a dark smudge appeared above titan heads, which in the split second killed both titans. After the copybook example of lightingspeed slaughter I eventually saw him. Rivaille flew above my head and fractionally looked at me. After he landed on the ten-metre-high building by my left, he threw away his broken bloody blades.

"Erwin ordered everybody to retreat," he shouted at me down, "do you have enough gas?"

I shot my left hook of my manoeuvre gear and I wanted to swing up on the roof in front of him. Instead of it I felt how the gas tanks ran out, so the pull up stopped. To my luck my hook undid and I started falling to the ground.

Rivaille promptly caught me by my left hand and brought me to the roof.

"As I was expecting this," he stated annoyingly, as he dropped me on the roof tiles, "I thought you would have been smarter, four-eyed."

"Charming as ever," I replied at once, rubbing my arm, which he caught me by.

"Charming my ass," he uttered and without asking or slightest warning he grasped me around my waist and took me to the rest of Scouting Legion.

„I am so much grateful that he picked me to his squad," said a petite ginger woman with delicate eyes already several times with her surprisingly quite sound voice.

The embarrassed blush were placed on her at another time completely calm and serious face and something more than just simple undying loyalty to her superior was reflecting in her eyes. I smiled when I saw her like that. It was such obvious.

"Quite a long time now I've been noticing how he sometimes stares at me while I'm practicing," she told me with discomfiture and her skin got a bloody red shade, "I was always nervous about it. I didn't want to embarrass myself. You know, what I mean."

I nodded. It was very cute to see my friend like that, especially when I knew about all of these 'secret' sights of her superior from the first hand. Rivaille had been considering her as a potential member of his elite squad for already long time. Despite his equivocal style of talking, with which he always thoroughly hid the real meaning of his words, I managed to guess, that even she wasn't quite indifferent to him. Yet still a little dagger of jealousy gnawed me on my chest and I felt certain wave of disappointment, when I realized it.

"I hope I won't let him down. I wouldn't be able to live with myself if I did so," Petra stated and caught her own head in embarrassment, trying to calm herself down.

"It will be fine. You're a great soldier and I know, he has a liking for you," I conveyed to comfort her but I felt that invisible dagger by my heart again.

"Do you really think so? The girl asked unbelievingly and hugged me afterwards I nodded to her question with honest grin.

We were sitting quite a long time in the stable still talking. Neither she nor me wanted to go back to our responsibilities. Sometimes we laughed a lot, sometimes we talked or gossiped about our comrades. It was quite nice time.

"Sorry to interrupt your feminine chattering, but I need to speak to you, Petra," too familiar voice sounded behind our backs.

The red-headed girl blushed immediately, like she would have swallowed her own tongue, absolutely unable to talk.

"When you so violently cut off our conversation, may I at least know, what is that important, that you bother yourself to come to us personally?" I refused to give up and I turned my head to face him.

"That's none of your business, four-eyed," Rivaille threw at me impatiently.

"Well then, see you," I resigned and without showing it, I stood up with little bit of sadness to leave them alone.

Just before my leave I tapped Petra's shoulder to encourage her and I left the pair of soldiers in stable for their own. As soon as I closed the door, I had both good and bad feeling at once. I didn't know, what was going to happen in there, maybe he just really came to say her something important. In every case I envied her so much.


	2. Chapter 2

"Here they come!" somebody in the crowd screamed followed by another shout, "the Scouting legion's main force is here."

I turned my head to the common citizens, who came to see out expedition just before we went through the gate on the other side. Everybody cheered and was happy, encouraged us, had a hope in us. The fact, that many of us wouldn't make it back, wasn't really on their mind.

I led my horse with the frozen look dumbly focused forward, watching blond shaved scruff o my commander. The screams continued.

"Chief Erwin!"

"Please kick some titan ass for us!"

I noticed a group of some children, who came to see us. I even heard a piece of a conversation of the trio of friends short way off, who observed us with an unhidden excitement. One of them pointed in my direction but after a short moment of scrutinizing him I realized that he didn't point on me but on a black-haired captain beside.

"Hey look! This is humanity's most powerful soldier! Lance Corporal Rivaille!" that boy, on whom I looked at, shouted, "as strong by himself as an entire brigade!"

His voice couldn't have been misheard. Rivaille sat on his horse obviously annoyed by the creaming of the crowd, because his eyes were lidded in boredom. As he heard boy's cry, tired he gave a sigh and I didn't miss how he rolled his eyes up in displeasure.

"Somebody please shut up these god damned brats..." he murmured rather for himself, while his horse slowly walked beside mine.

"Good thing, those wide-eyed kids don't know what a cleanliness freak you are... They'd be in for a rude awakening," I stated with a grin. He didn't answer.

In that moment the whole Scouting Legion stopped in front of the gate, which slowly started lifting.

"Beyond this wall, the titans await!" I rejoiced out loud, because I had been looking forward for this exploration for a whole week already, "what types will I get to meet this time? I hope I can see an abnormal. That would be so awesome!"

I giggled while I imagined all the various types and the sizes of the titans. Most of people around looked at me in horror.

"If you want an abnormal, I've found one." It sounded annoyed somewhere near me.

Rivaille had a really sceptical expression on his face, even though his information interested me.

"Huh? Where?" I asked immediately and I looked around enthusiastically.

All of my hair stood up on my cruff, when I felt somebody's fingers in my brown mane. When the hand in my hair turned my head on the other side, I saw Rivaille, how he gazed at me from the immediate proximity.

With still annoyed face he uttered silently: "Right here..."

Goggle-eyed I remained silent and I felt, how my cheeks started to burn in an embarrassment and a surprise. Luckily for me, in that moment the humanity's strongest soldier stood already quite far away of me and the gate fully opened finally, so our whole expedition set out.

Traditionally, I sat by my table buried in papers about the research. However, this time I didn't mind at all. Finally I had two living exemplars, on which I could do some experiments. I didn't actually need sleep how I was excited. I spent too much time with my research, so I lost my consciousness about the reality.

Absorbed with my work I jumped into the air a bit, when somebody knocked on my door.

"Come in," I rapped out with accelerated breath, how I was startled.

I turned from my table to the comer. Mike stood in the doorframe and scrutinized the room covered with all kinds of papers. He shook his head and then looked at me.

"Are you going to the meeting?" he asked like it was the matter of course.

"What meeting?" I didn't understand and I couldn't prevent myself from yawning.

Just now I noticed that I had my glasses badly placed on my nose and while I was waiting for Mike's answer, I straightened them.

"Erwin called all of captains due to something important to discuss," he explained, "come on, let's go, it starts in a minute."

"Eh... yeah," I nodded in agreement, finished my cold tea and stood up to accompany him.

Everybody sat at the conference table waiting for us in our superior's office. Rivaille stood by the window and he observed the scenery beyond. Erwin walked between him and the other officers.

"We're all here, finally," Nanaba stated, sitting in the middle of table.

"Let's start, shall we?" Erwin delivered almost grandiosely and he approached the table.

I with Mike kept standing and Rivaille didn't show any slightest attention to Erwin.

"As you know, the humanity has found the new hope and that happens to be a 15-year-old boy called Eren Jaeger, the human, who is able to shift into a titan," he introduced us into the problem.

Everybody silently nodded in agreement.

"I decided to use his unordinary abilities," he continued and I giggled silently, and in the process Mike's corners of his mouth started twitching as he took a notice of me. However, Erwin kept talking, "nevertheless the Military police would like to execute him right away."

The small unhappy sigh escaped my mouth.

"To make long story short because the details are not that important, Rivaille and his special opps squad would regain whole control of Eren. Alternatively they would kill him, if necessary. In any case we haven't won yet, though," commander kept going and Rivaille finally turned his sight to him, as he mentioned him.

"Could I do some experiments on him?" I couldn't help myself but ask, and wide greedy smile spread on my face.

"Only with his permission," Erwin answered.

"Don't worry, I will have it. Sooner or later," I laughed.

"That is probably all, you can go on your own," their superior closed the debate and sat to an upholstered armchair, just to have some rest and to pour himself a tea with milk.

As I left with Mike, we had already arranged the export of Eren to the trial, at least. I would have liked to get to know the boy, his physiology was really fascinating to me. Even Mike stated, that would like to sniff him.

After dreadful scene to which I stood idly by the court side by side to Erwin and Mike, we went to the one of many rooms inside the tribunal with a devastated boy covered in his own blood and with a bluish bruise under his right eye.

I sat on my knee by the brown-haired and I examined his wounds. I took a cotton-wool swab with tweezers from a first-aid kit I took with myself from the headquarters, with ethanol and I started disinfecting his injuries.

"That was really terrible," I murmured while I was watching 15-year-old boy, how destroyed he kept looked at me as I was treating him.

He clenched his teeth a bit, as I touched his snapped lip with the swab.

"Does it hurt much?" I asked attentively pulling out my head with the swab and I held him a cold compress.

"A bit," he uttered dejectedly but he gratefully accepted the wet fabric and applied it to his swollen cheek.

"And how does it hurt?" I couldn't help myself, because I finally got to see him, the one, who could shift into a titan, from immediate proximity.

He got probably scared by my overexcited scientific interest, because he wide-opened his green eyes in the wave of consternation. In that moment Erwin came to him, waiting till I finished my job, so I receded a bit with the first-aid kit to leaf my commander some space for talking to the boy.

As I put all of the things I used to the kit, in the meantime I recognized Rivaille leaned against the wall in a gloom because the muffled light of setting sun radiated through the window to the other side of the room. He looked disgusted as he observed his own hands. When he noticed my scrutiny how I looked up to him from the ground and my first-aid kit, he quickly crossed his arms on his chest and put his typical annoyed grimace on.

When Erwin's speech came to an end he held his hand with Eren, the black-haired captain walked along the room and without warning he fell on the sofa beside the boy who jumped up a little. Rivaille nestled on the divan with sight fixed at the new member of Scouting legion.

"Nah, Eren," he talked with an arrogant rough voice.

"Y-yes, sir?" the boy answered hastily, with the unbearable respect but also unhidden horror reflecting in his eyes.

"Do you hate me?" the short captain asked him and looked at him inquisitively.

"N-no," Eren gave a shriek and looked for a split of second to me, "I understand, it was inevitable."

Rivaille turned his head away and closed the eyes: "That's good," he uttered and a relief was perceptible in his face. It was weird to see him expressing some emotions even though for a split of second. Eren gazed at him at first and then he slid with his eyes across the room to me so I got to see his bloody bruise under his eye again.

"You have overdone it a bit," I couldn't stay silent about it as I contemplated boy's wounds again. Rivaille refused to open his eyes.

"He even lost his tooth," I added in direction to Eren and I took a white handkerchief out of a pocket of my uniform jacket, in which I deposited his tooth, "see?"

In that moment black-haired opened his eyes again and even though I hadn't talked to him, he stared as slightly bloodied tooth in the tissue.

"Don't pick it up. That's creepy," Rivaille murmured with his mysterious silent voice and faced grossed out, but not as much as when he observed his own palms.

"Even this is an important exemplar," I objected, refusing to look at him.

Eren still stared at me wide-eyed and injured.

"Eren, it is still better to lose your tooth than be anatomized by the people like her, huh?" he pronounced sarcastically.

"I am not like them," I retorted immediately, this time meeting with his gaze, "I wouldn't kill him," I frowned as I found out, that he kept looking at me with those heartless, annoyed eyes and I turned my head to the victim of Rivaille's kicks, "can I look from where did it fall out?"

Eren got a little surprised but then he silently and obediently opened his mouth as much as he could just for me to watch. I couldn't prevent myself from amazement, when I found out, that the place, from which the premolar fell out was already filled with the new one. I gave a shriek a bit, so everybody in the room looked at me.

"The tooth...," I breathed, "it has already grown back."

"Do you think, he haven't seen the gunshot?" I asked in a confusion after five minutes of waiting not so far of a dried well, awaiting Eren's transformation.

"Of course he has," the black-haired man by my left murmured and annoyed walked to the well.

He trod slowly and unexcitedly, with hands buried deep in his trousers' pockets. I caught up with him quickly and together we tilted across the edge of the well. I saw Jaegera, how he had been sitting on the bottom, entirely in blood, how he repeatedly bit the skin on his hands. He seemed like a victim of an animal attack. I didn't miss, that the rest of his tears caused by pain kept shining on his cheeks. I bit my lip in empathy.

"I can't transform," the brown-haired boy shouted and his words kept repeating several times due to the echo in the well.

"Great," I heard Rivaille curse beside myself.

I shaked my head, when I watched his shaved scruff and tilted across the edge again.

"So come up, I'll treat your arms," I screamed my offer as loud as possible and then I straightened up, "that slightly kills our plans," I pronounced much more quietly.

"Hmm," was the only thing I heard from Rivaille, because he turned around in no time and left to his squad.

After I bandaged Eren's arms properly, I went to the edge of the forest nearby. I sat on the tree stump and wrote down some notes to my journal, while Special ops squad, what was in charge of Eren, sit peacefully by the cottage, which well we used. Already from the distance I saw Petra with Rivaille all alone not so far of the table talking excitedly together about something. I grinned a bit although I felt weird strange heaviness on my chest and my smile got bitter.

I continued writing my findings about Eren once more to take my mind off it, but a flash of light and a scream disturbed me. Next to the cottage, where I stared just a couple minutes ago, a huge titan arm was found. I wide-opened my eyes in surprise and I quickly ran to them across the meadow. Finally I had an opportunity to touch at least a part of titan without any bigger danger.

As I joined them, all of the members of Rivaille's squad had had their swords drew. They stood ready around Eren and his arm and their leader tried to calm them down in vain. I imaginary waved my hand above them and ran right to Eren.

"Can I touch it? I couldn't bear it, so without proper permission I touched his muscles uncovered by an epidermis.

I had a feeling like I would have put my hands into the boiling water. I screamed.

"God, it's so hot! Do you feel that heat too, Eren?"

The boy ignored me unfortunately. He managed to pull out his limb out of the titan hand. It started to evaporate immediately.

"Nooo, what have you done, I didn't manage to do either some tests or the experiments," I lamented and in that moment I noticed the small spoon between the titan index finger and thumb.

I opened my mouth in astonishment and I saw Rivaille in front of me peripherally, who just sighed as he watched my reaction.


	3. Chapter 3

Exactly how Erwin predicted, the plan for the female type worked out. I just fired one of the artillery guns with special hooks, so the blond-haired titan found itself in the web of metallic ropes, which were sticked all over its body.

Rivaille just flew to Erwin on the opposite tree and together with Mike they set off to cut out the person inside the titan of its nape. I got frightened because of the terrible sound of their blades shattering to pieces against the hardened skin on its neck.

This titan definitely looked atypically. It had no skin and its muscles were more worked out than the muscles of other titans who often had quite big abdomen and flabby limbs. This one was like some athletic type of titan. I cheered that we managed to catch it and my mind was already musing about what kind of test we should do on it at first.

The short body of black-haired captain had been standing on the titan's head. It was obvious, that the soldier is pretty angry, because I noticed how he kicked her top of the head fiercely. Inwardly I realized how childish it was of him. However, I even heard a piece of his creepy monologue, in which he asked the titan, if it was alright to cut its real human limbs.

I didn't have time to think about it much, because the deafening scream came out of the captured titan's mouth. Everybody held their ears instinctually and dropped their swords of 3DMG to the ground. As the enemy stopped shouting, everybody sighed in relief. Unfortunately, nobody noticed the incoming mass of ordinary titans, who flung on the female type and started to tear its flash alive.

"So you did something, you bitch, huh?!" I heard, how Rivaille shouted at it furiously just before he jumped off to kill some approaching titans.

Even though the titanic army had been devastating by most of our soldiers, we had no chance to defeat them all, so Erwin ordered to retreat. Everybody moved to their horses and rode after the commander.

As I caught up with Erwin, I couldn't help myself but ask: "Why did you send Rivaille to refill? There's no time to lose."

"Hanji, I did so, because I had remembered the one of your hypothesis," he answered with eyes fixed forward, "that the human inside the titan is still able to move after the dissolving, so he or she equipped himself or herself with 3DMG and with our uniform to blend with us and escape."

"Nevertheless, I also stated, that it is barely possible considering the state in which Eren finds himself after changing into his human form. On top of that his equipment was irretrievably damaged and his uniform was gone," I doubted out loud.

"The female type was able to call up the other titans with the shout. We have no idea, what more it is able to do. We have to predict the worst scenario," Erwin continued rapidly, "we cannot bet on Eren, who is just a beginner. In my opinion the person inside used the steam as a cover to sneak off."

"That makes sense," I admitted and continued riding silently.

Hopefully neither Eren nor Rivaille got harmed, I thought to myself and frowned with that idea.

The bedroom was gloom inside. The little of the remaining light just before sunset wasn't almost penetrating through the curtains. When I entered the room, I had to blink for a while till my eyes got used to the darkness and even still I almost missed him, sitting on his bed in the corner.

"What do you want!" he hewed at me instead of greeting or even looking at me.

"Erwin sent me due your injured leg," I explained trying to be nice, even though he barely deserved my kind attitude for his rude behaviour.

The past day was really tough for everyone though. We all had to except the loss of many of our friends and comrades. According to his appearance, as I came to him slowly and carefully, I was sure, that he hadn't done so yet.

"Go away, I'm okay," he tried to drive me off with his deep poisonous voice.

The small emblems of the Wings of Liberty torn from the uniforms of his deceased inferiors were pressed forcefully in his hands. The face was twisted in anger and bewilderment.

"Can I at least see it?" I asked, concerned about him.

"Then hurry up!" he retorted angrily.

He didn't bother himself to roll up his trouser leg or to even put off the carrying traps needed for hanging of 3DMG. His eyes kept piercing me. My hands shook a bit, when I noticed, that he no longer looked on the pieces of textile in his hands but me. At that moment I was suddenly very grateful for the darkness in the room.

I rolled up his grey trousers in the middle of his shin unskilfully and I didn't miss how he hissed in pain as I slowly took off the fastening of the strap from his foot. As tenderly as they could, my fingers ran over the ankle to find out, what was wrong with it. The skin was abnormally hot and beneath the joint was noticeable swelling. I tried to feel some skeletal irregularity, and as I did so, his leg flinched.

"Shit! What are you doing?!" it escaped from his mouth and in the light speed he took my forearm and pulled my hand off his ankle.

"I am sorry, I just needed to find out, what exactly was broken," I apologized hastily and I released my arm from his grip.

He remained silent and once more observed the scraps of the uniforms in his left hand.

"You cannot fight for some time," I stated, "no walking at least for a week."

No response.

"Are you listening to me, Rivaille?" I asked.

"Yeah! And now, go away," he tried to throw me out of his room.

I got up and turned to leave. However, after several steps I turned back and the words just flipped out of my mouth: "It is not your fault, don't blame yourself."

I said it with comforting voice and I smiled at him cheeringly.

"Don't blame yourself?" he repeated furiously and stabbed me with his sight, while he took of his inaccessible mask, which he used to wear all the time, and the hatred and sorrow gleamed in his eyes at the same time, "this is really easy to say, you know? Your entire squad wasn't wiped out. You didn't have to throw the corpses of your inferiors under titan feet and watch how they got crushed under them. And now you said that I fucking can't even fight. Fuck off, Hanji! And get out finally!" he shouted at me, frustrated due to his previous pretence.

I observed him, taken aback, absolutely unable to response. That was the first time he screamed at me. Actually the very first time he vented the anger on someone as I remembered. I inhaled to reply opening my mouth a bit but that I changed my mind and with sadness reflecting in my eyes I turned on my heel and quickly headed off to the door.

"Damn it," I heard him behind my back in a low voice as I had been closing the door and it sound like he actually regretted that he said anything at all.

They were not just your friends, I thought just before I walked away sadly.

For the entire following day I tried to avoid him as much as possible. I sent one my inferior to him to treat his leg and I refused to get in touch with him. Actually I shattered all my sorrow in work. Paperwork again.

After a long tiring day spent with the reports, announcements of death and supplying I was completely exhausted. When I realized, that there was dark outside again, I take off my glasses and kneaded my eyes. I had been so weary, that I didn't react for a considerable minute as someone knocked on my door.

"Eh… come in," I said monotonously and I rubbed the corner of left eye, while I turned across the chair to the door in confusion.

I was just yawning with a palm in front of my mouth, when the door opened. Just after I focused again after the yawn I got to see silhouette of a black-haired soldier. Rivaille was standing in his civilian clothing in the doorframe with deathly pale skin and the deep huge rings under the eyes.

"May I?" He asked with the voice strangely husky and silent.

I blinked in a confusion and I barely noticeably nodded. It was the first time he came to visit me. For a while he just gazed around the room, obviously thinking about the same thing, before he looked at me again.

"Today…," he pronounced almost hoarsely, leaning on the wooden stick with all his power, "today I came to their relatives…" he breathed out and his eyes shined peculiarly in the light of the oil lamp, "all four families…," he fell silent again and bended the head down slightly, while he bit his lip.

I didn't know what to say. I felt familiar pressure inside my head and the sorrow started weighing me on my breasts again. I hadn't really known why, but I stood up.

"I am so sorry," the black-haired man uttered barely audibly, with closed eyes and lightly shaking lips.

I forgave him long time before he even ended his apology and I hugged him tightly. It took a moment before he grasped my back with his free arm but then buried his head into the fabric of the shirt on my shoulder gratefully and I felt how he started silently sobbing.

I couldn't prevent the memories of my friends coming to my mind. Especially the memory of my best friend, who was always smiley, nice, friendly and hopelessly in love with the man I was just hugging and which scruff I was just stroking, and a little amount of tears ran off my cheeks.

"I heard about your infamous blackmailing of the priest," Rivaille noted, when I met him standing by the vehicles prepared for the survey beyond the walls.

Since his emotional breakdown in my bedroom we hadn't talked to each other. As he calmed down that night, he apologized to me once more and then left away silently. I stayed standing on the same spot we were so fiercely hugging each other for another while just gazing forward, rubbing my wet cheeks with the back of hand. As if the skin wanted to make it to me even worse, I still felt the familiar sensation of his body pressed against mine. Even though I wasn't exactly happy at the moment and the teardrops kept rolling down my cheeks, I couldn't help but tend to still reminding myself about his grasp.

Now, as he talked to me again, something inside my chest joyfully jumped. I couldn't prevent myself from smiling. The grin on my face almost immediately changed into sceptical sight.

"However, without success, I could have probably threw him down the wall and nothing would have really happen," I murmured.

Maybe due the sun, which was shining into my eyes and slightly dazzling me, or maybe the tiny crack in one glass of my spectacles, but for a moment a phantom of a smile flashed past Rivaille's face. As I noticed it, he had already put his annoyed mask on.

"Well, you should, now this loony is my charge," he pronounced sceptically while he was phlegmatically watching me sitting into the dust on the ground and his nose crouched.

My face screwed up in amusement as I saw his disgusted look and I moved the glasses on my nose closer to the eyes.

"Deal with it," I said in response, I was tired.

I leaned on my hands behind my back and lifted my head. The clouds started colouring into orange and bloody red as the sun was setting. They should go soon. Because the injured captain kept standing in the trajectory of my sight to heaven, I noticed, how he kept thoughtfully gazing forward.

"What's the matter?" it slipped from my mouth.

"I just… thought about Ilse Langner. Remember? How we found her corpse even with the diary," he answered still watching something in front of his eyes covered in ruminating.

"Yeah, what's with her?" I didn't understand, but I exactly remembered how he had got interested in her journal already at the day of finding it.

He shook his head.

"We should go," he said fleetingly and to my surprise he even offered me his hand to help me get up.

That was quite a miracle, considering the fact, that my palms were completely covered in dust and dirt of the ground and also some blood. I gave him astonished look but I excepted his hand. It was strange, when I realized how my skin desired to touch him again. I bit my lip fractionally and rather let the hand go as I stood up. I didn't long for my cheeks getting red, which would be pretty obvious eye-beating evidence of my embarrassment.

"Well, but what about that Ilse?" I didn't forget while I was dusting my trousers bend forward, mainly in order to cover my burning cheeks with hair.

"You have been still trying to speak to every single titan, you have met, huh?" he stated and the ironical grin was noticeable in his voice.

"Yeah, so what?" I nodded with neutral voice, finally straighten up for us to leave into the vehicle to the priest and Eren with his two friends.

He didn't answer and just silently sat by the right hand of the priest directly in front of the dark-haired girl with red scarf winded around her neck.

I sat beside the priest on the other side and to make myself comfortable on the wooden bench, I bended one of my legs, which I placed on the seat and leaned on her with my elbow, scrunching strangely shaped rock in my palm.

The three friends opposite looked at us astonished but with esteem, not daring to speak.

"By the way, I didn't know you've got new deviation in rocks," I heard his mocking voice across the priest and all four pairs of eyes except for him turned to the stone in my hand.

I was lying in the wooden cart. There was something fasten over my right eye and my body couldn't move at all. The free eyelid was pressing me and I felt the metallic aftertaste of blood on my dried chapped lips. I breathed shallowly and my eyes almost blindly looked up to the starry sky above my head.

I sensed that we were riding somewhere just imperceptibly. Like in a trance I gazed upward without noticing, that there was lying the unconscious hope of the humanity next to me with his friend worth of hundred soldiers. The black-haired girl breathed with difficulties and her chest was just temporally bandaged. A brown-haired boy with the hand hanging in the triangular scarf tied around his neck and the bandage over his forehead was sitting beside the girl, perfectly consciously looking after her with caring eyes.

My neck and vocal cords were too dried out, that I couldn't speak properly. I was terribly thirsty. Instead of the talk I was just silently opening and shutting my mouth like the fish just taken out of the river. After a while I gave it up and I just kept listening to the sounds of horses behind my head, the wheels jingling on rocks on the road or the muffled conversation between the brown-haired boy and that barely breathing girl, who I knew about just barely.

I didn't felt the tops of my fingers or toes. My body was freezing, shaking with the chill of the night. Despite my clenching jaws and painful knot in my stomach I heard how the young boy in the cart said something about us entering the wall soon.

Most likely I felt unconscious for a while, because I woke up and somebody was leaning to me. Due to the light above his head I couldn't see the face of that somebody. Until the source of the light was shadowed by another just approaching man, I recognized Rivaille with Erwin.

Erwin was covered in blood and I couldn't tell properly, because I was a bit delirious but his right arm was somehow missing. Rivaille's clothes were also bloody red but how I was observing him vaguely and almost unconsciously, it seemed, that it wasn't his own blood on the shirt. He was sayng something to me but I just blinked at him and almost not hearing a single word. Not speaking that I had no clue about what he was talking about.

"Hanji!" I heard him screaming finally, but my auditory apparatus received it just cursorily.

He caught my hand and gripped it firmly. His palm was literally burning with heat. He repeated my name several times, but in the end I only knew that by lip-reading. His face looked worried. Did he really care about me, I thought and a fleeting smile appeared on my face. Despite the weakening a little cheerful spark jumped in my chest.

For a moment he gazed at me in surprise but then the corners of his mouth slightly twisted into the smile as well. However, as my vision started dissolving and everything around him got blurred, I felt how he shook me a bit and obviously started repeating my name again.

It might have been the loss of blood or the injury on my head, which I suffered, but for a little moment his eyes appeared to me like they were gleaming with sorrow, before even he changed into a blurry silhouette and even it did into impenetrable mass of darkness.

I was lying at the sick berth inside the fortress of the Scouting legion. Immediately after regaining consciousness I recognized the room, because I often helped here with treating of injured soldiers. It never had come to my mind, that I would have been in that bad condition to be lying here myself.

The sunlight radiated inside through the windows and lighted up at some other time so dark room, that it looked very clean and clear. My eyes hurt, the light were piercing into them mercilessly. In addition I felt how the bandage and probably some stitches pressed the outer corner of my right eye. I saw the world around little bit blurry, but it was an ordinary state in my case, when I just didn't have my glasses on.

My hair were down, spread around my head all over the pillow underneath. The lips were not that chapped as before but still pretty dry and glued together. Carefully, I opened them a bit and inhaled the air deeply. In a fear, that my spine had got damaged, I tried to move my arm. As I started feeling radiating pain in it, I bit my lip convulsively but in my core a huge boulder of fear fell off, because the pain meant, that nothing happened to the spinal cord. I lifted up a little with the help of my other, healthy hand.

My legs were pretty stiff and inflexible. Just after five minutes long efforts, when I almost fell into hopeless cry, my legs managed to move. With one tear, which was flowing down my cheek, I started laughing with relief.

My laughter woke up a man, who was sleeping in a tortuous position at the wooden armchair beside my bed. To my surprise it was Rivaille. I stopped laughing immediately and just silently scrutinized him. For a little while he looked confused and even his face didn't seem that annoyed as ever despite the deep dark rings under his reddish eyes. Just a minute he was looking into the corner in the just-waking-up confusion and he straightened himself up in the chair. Then he probably realized where he just found himself.

His broken leg was stretched out while his other one was comfortably bend in the sitting position. He grasped a armrest with the palm and with the other one he knead his sleepy eyes. When he sighted, that I was awake already, he immediately came more alive and carefully stood up to not burden his injured leg, and in the process he came across to my bed lamely.

"How do you feel?" he asked with as worried and frowned expression on his face as I saw it last time, with no signs of haughtiness, arrogance or scepticism like it always had been earlier.

"Stiffened I guess? I don't know, I am pretty thirsty," I admitted and observed him with goggled eyes as he leaned above me.

He wiped a teardrop, which escaped me while I was fighting with deadened nerves in my legs, trying to move them. I didn't defend myself from embarrassment, I couldn't ran away anywhere. Just laying there I silently looked at him with cheeks covered in blush.

"Erwin told me, what had happened," he said and glanced into my eyes again after he stopped scrutinizing the place, where he had caught the tear.

His slim fingers kept touching my not bandaged side of face, though. The reddish eyes were reflecting worries. It was very strange to see him with that kind of grimace with no sign of disdain.

"I am reckless," I admitted and for a split of a second I looked away, "but I guess, I was still pretty lucky," I added and a fleeting smile found its way on my face.

"You stupid," Rivaille scolded me and pretended to be angry, still stroking the cheek with a thumb under my eye, "you could have died," he added bitterly and his eyes gleamed like they had done last time.

"Were you worried about me?" I stated with a mischievous smile.

"Hmm," Rivaille grinned, "yeah I was," he admitted after a while.

My cheeks were probably perfectly burning like fire and while looking at my blush his smile widened. It was quite weird, unnatural to sight him smiling, when I considered the fact, that from the first time I had seen him, he had been always just frowning. I bit my lip tentatively, when I realized I was probably one of a small amount of people, who had ever seen him smile.

"The smile suits you, you should wear it more often," I pronounced with laughter and stroked his cheek with the back of my left hand.

"I probably will," he replied and leaned to me to slightly kiss me on my lips.

Then he pulled away. I blinked in surprise but before he managed to straighten up, I caught the collar of his black shirt and drew him back.

"But never," he started while we were kissing, "ever," he continued a bit, too busy with kisses he was giving me, "risk like that, okay?" he finished finally.

"Yes, Captain," I responded obediently and caught his neck to pull him closer to me again.

_**THE END**_


End file.
